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Patent licensor Uniloc Luxembourg SA—among the top patent buyers in the U.S.-brokered
market in the second quarter of 2017—has already gone to court to enforce them, according
to data reviewed by Bloomberg BNA.

Just a few weeks after adding new patents to its intellectual property arsenal, Uniloc
began asserting them in infringement complaints filed in U.S. district courts against
companies, including software giant Apple Inc., Bloomberg Law data show.

Uniloc acquired 68 U.S. patents from server technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Co. That was the largest deal in the quarter for U.S. patents and brought Uniloc’s
ranking up to fourth, overall, in total patent assets, including applications and
foreign patents, data provided to Bloomberg BNA by Richardson Oliver Law Group LLP
showed.

So far, only 13 U.S. patents from that transaction, including those being asserted
in court, have been recorded in the Patent and Trademark Office’s assignment records.
The patents broadly cover wireless communication and battery charging technologies,
the records show.

ROL Group tracks the reassignment of U.S. patents from various listed packages comprising
U.S. and foreign patents, and patent applications for sale, to identify when a sale
is executed. Due to a lag in recording reassignments at the PTO, the group assumes
that a given package is sold if any U.S. patents listed in it are shown as reassigned
in the PTO’s system.

Uniloc, which has been in the patent-assertion business for a long time, has acquired
the skill of licensing and litigating patents, Kent Richardson, an ROL partner, said.
“The Uniloc team is now applying that skill to new technology areas, markets and potential
licensees,” by acquiring diverse patents, Richardson said.

Asserting Patents Bought from HPE

Luxembourg-based Uniloc and its subsidiaries have as many as 272 U.S. patents and
pending applications, according to the assignment records.

In August, Uniloc filed a suit against software giant Apple in the U.S. District Court
for the Eastern District of Texas, asserting a patent it bought from HPE covering
technology that lets a palm-sized computer control network devices. Apple’s iOS smartphones
and tablets that control devices such as Apple TV infringe its recently-acquired patent,
Uniloc said in its lawsuit.

Litigating in Texas

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Grp Brands LLC in May that patentees can’t file lawsuits solely based on where an alleged infringer
sells a product in order to get their cases heard in purportedly friendly jurisdictions
like the Eastern District of Texas. Even so, Uniloc has continued to file suits in
the district on the grounds that companies like Apple have retail stores that constitute
a “regular and established” place of business in the district for venue purposes.

Uniloc and its American unit, Uniloc USA Inc., have filed approximately 318 infringement
suits—95 percent in the Eastern District of Texas—since filing their first complaint
in 2003 against Microsoft Corp. that ended in a settlement, according to Bloomberg
Law data.

In June, Uniloc was the top filer of infringement suits in the East Texas court with
11 lawsuits—including complaints against Apple over motion sensor technology, and
against Google over online voice communication patents.

Uber No.1 Buyer in Q2

Ride-hailing service Uber Technologies Inc., for the second quarter in a row, was
the largest buyer of patent assets, including patent applications and foreign patents.
Uber has been aggressively buying patents to defend against potential infringement
lawsuits.

Second-quarter purchases covered 110 assets, including 59 U.S.-issued patents from
HPE and business software company ManyWorlds Inc., according to the ROL data. Twenty-four
HPE patent assets, bought in June by Uber, involve communication-server technology,
the PTO assignment records show. The 12 ManyWorlds patents, also acquired in June,
cover technology that helps match people based on common interests and geographical
proximity.

Uber has recently begun challenging patents through the PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal
Board. The PTAB reviews the validity of issued patents, giving defendants in infringement
cases an opportunity to cancel patents asserted against them. In August, it filed
petitions challenging two patents related to location-based tracking technology in
response to a 2016 infringement complaint filed by software developer X One Inc.

On the other hand, one patent Uber bought in the second quarter through the Industry
Patent Purchase Program run by Allied Security Trust, which buys patents to safeguard
its members from infringement suits, was invalidated after a challenge from the Texas
Association of Realtors. The PTAB found in August that “displaying points-of-interest
on a digital map” claims in the patent were not patentable.

Total Asset Listings Remain Low

The number of patent assets listed in the market totaled 1,611, up 9 percent from
the first quarter of 2017 but down 41 percent from the same period a year ago.

The number of patent-deal packages listed totaled 105, relatively unchanged from the
first quarter and down 51 percent from the same period a year ago.

The median asking price, per new asset listed by patent brokers, was $150,000 in the
second quarter. That reflected a drop of 30 percent from the previous quarter, and
10 percent from the second quarter of 2016.

“People are constraining their asking prices to a narrower range,” Richardson said.
“People trying to differentiate themselves from a price point of view are having to
work harder.”

Brokers matched buyers and sellers for 40 deals on packages of related patents during
the quarter, according to ROL data. Those deals totaled 764 assets, including 491
granted U.S. patents.

To contact the reporter on this story: Malathi Nayak in Washington at
mnayak@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mike Wilczek at
mwilczek@bna.com

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